The Center is dedicated to preventing and eliminating healthcare disparities for diverse and vulnerable populations by ensuring their access to culturally and linguistically competent healthcare.

The Center uses a two-fold approach to achieve its mission: (1) developing culturally competent healthcare practitioners and (2) facilitating delivery of cultural and linguistically appropriate healthcare.

Through a comprehensive, multifaceted approach, the center supports the development of UMDNJ-School of Nursing as the state’s premier institution for culturally competent education, practice, research and consultation. The Center also seeks to contribute to the development of health policy that supports cultural competence in educational and clinical settings.

The Center’s mission is supported by strategies and goals in five major areas:

• Education
• Practice
• Research
• Consultation
• Collaboration

For more information about the center, please contact:

Dula Pacquiao, EdD, CTN, RN
UMDNJ- School of Nursing
65 Bergen Street, Room GA45
Newark, NJ 07101
973-972-8536
paquidf@umdnj.edu

Education Goals and Strategies

• Design programs to enhance educational achievement of culturally diverse nursing students.
• Develop programs to enhance ability of healthcare educators in teaching culturally diverse students.
• Offer programs to increase cultural competence of health care practitioners.
• Design curricula integrating the theory and clinical applications of cultural competent care.
• Implement programs accessible to multidisciplinary healthcare practitioners leading to a certification in multicultural healthcare practice and/or education.

Practice Goals and Strategies

• Promote implementation of culturally competent models of care delivery with culture-specific and universal components.
• Implement programs to enhance transcultural leadership and intercultural communication.
• Facilitate linguistically appropriate communication with target populations.
• Develop and promote implementation of change models for transforming organizational culture.
• Provide mentoring opportunities for staff development in cultural competence, cultural conflict management and cultural brokering.
• Develop approaches to promote team work among diverse work staff in healthcare organizations.
• Design acculturation programs for healthcare organizations dealing with culturally diverse staff and clients.

Research Goals and Strategies

• Evaluate outcomes of programs for cultural competence in transcultural leadership.
• Assess outcomes of cultural competent care on health and illness patterns among diverse groups.
• Determine effectiveness of transcultural health care policy on target populations.
• Evaluate educational outcomes of transcultural nursing curricula/programs.
• Provide mentoring opportunities for UMDNJ faculty and students in cross cultural research.

Consultation Goals and Strategies

• Provide expertise to individuals, groups, organizations and communities in needs assessment, program planning and implementation, and outcomes evaluation.
• Provide linkage with network of scholars, experts and other resources in transcultural nursing.
• Develop setting-specific programs for cultural competence development of managers, educators, preceptors and staff.
• Provide expert consultation for educational institutions regarding teaching and evaluation of multicultural students. 

Collaboration Goals and Strategies

• Develop internal and external collaboration to develop cultural competence of faculty, student and healthcare personnel
• Develop local and statewide collaboration to influence healthcare policies supportive of access of diverse and vulnerable populations to culturally and linguistically competent healthcare.
• Develop internal and external collaboration in the UMDNJ system to facilitate development of educational policies responsive to needs of culturally diverse students and practitioners.
• Seek collaborative partnerships to obtain external funding and program implementation.